Politics, GTFO

I’m not normally one to discuss politics, especially my personal politics, amongst polite company. Politics in general have become so partisan, polar, and fueled with pointless hateful rhetoric that I wonder if I’m not actually watching some kind of sporting event between bitter long term rivals, rather than people who feel like they should be leaders of our country. It shouldn’t be about painting the other guy as evil, or more incompetent than you, it should be about your strengths and your merits, and what you bring to the table.

I’m fairly disgusted with the entirety of our political system at this point. There’s been ads on TV for both candidates for the past 13 months on television. I’m sick. To. Death. The election can’t come fast enough. At least I’ll get a year’s worth of political respite before the next set of campaigning starts for the gubernatorial election cycles.

I play games for the express reason to get away from this shit. I like my virtual escapes, be they racing, rocking, or fragging. They can allude to political situations, certainly. Teach me slightly obscure lessons about the world stage. Have at it. But I don’t want to see overt statements about current politics. It should come as no surprise that when I boot up a game, I don’t want to see a political ad. I don’t want to hear any garbage about “oh, but it was just a billboard encouraging people to get out and vote now that early voting has started!” Bullshit. It had the individual’s website/slogan on it, did it not? Did it not have their face on it? It’s a political ad. End of story. It has no business being in my games. I don’t even like the stupid Live Game the Vote thing or whatever b.s. they’re calling it on Xbox Live. Accepting a politician’s logo as your Live Avatar is not synonymous with voting. It barely even qualifies for taking part in a poll. A horribly unscientific, skewed, and biased poll.

Look, these people, all of them, don’t know fuck all about our hobby/passtime/passion. They’ll give some lip service about it, and then turn around and bite us in the ass just as soon as it fits their needs to do so. Both sides have claimed that videogames are either killing or ruining our children at some point, so why the hell would we invite them into our house and let them pretend to be our friends when they take every opportunity to shit on our rug and tell us it’s our fault?

I don’t even care if politicians eventually embrace video-games as the world’s greatest entertainment and educational medium that they are. The bottom line here is this:

Do you really want them campaigning in your hobby?

I don’t.

Note: Don’t even think about playing a fanboy card for your candidate of choice in the comments. Any flamebaiting or one-sided cheerleading is going to get baleeted as soon as I see it. Feel free to discuss the issue at hand.